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Zapatista Women.

Offers to escape
the complexities of globalization are ubiquitous. Especially in weakened,
crisis-ridden or authoritarian democracies something that could be called globalization
escapism is becoming increasingly popular, while the state as a
self-sufficient and encapsulated shelter is promoted as a fantasy refuge.

The proliferation
of nationalist right-wing populism in the global public sphere aggravates this
dangerous escapism. Though this may seem pretty obvious, the consequences are however
less perceptible, requiring more attention. The escapist tendency, that,
following Hannah Arendt, could be called “Weltentfremdung” (alienation from the
world), shrinks access to the world. The result is a shrinkage for all of us in
access to the world as it is, as well as access to the world as it
could be. This has particularly strong affects on marginalised,
invisibilized and illegalized actors. But the privileged are also affected:
persons with unlimited legal status, access to higher education systems, jobs
subject to social security contributions, and so forth.

This development
makes the escapist fantasy untenable, forcing us sooner or later to develop a
new sense of reality and a new love for the world. The question arises, to what
degree can the state function as a shelter at all? Whoever asks this question
needs to face up to and affirm the complexities of globalization in the first
place, and needs to find ways not to see these as threats, since this
triggers paranoid defense mechanisms that have devastating consequences.

Instead, we need to
see the complexities that are becoming increasingly visible in the course of
globalization as challenges to be tackled cooperatively by all of us –
privileged and dispossessed alike. The MORE WORLD project proposes that these
challenges can be overcome neither by the nation state alone, nor without it.
Rather, the challenges should be approached by combining communal, state and
global structures.

The MORE WORLD
project suggests starting at the micro level, that is, exploring communal
practices and tools that are potentially useful for the multi-layered interplay
of communal, state and global structures. To this end, the project will focus
on such exemplary complexes produced by and productive of globalization, as climate
change, migration and digitalization, which the Berliner Gazette (BG) intends
to relate to one another as interconnected planetary challenges.

In its twentieth
year, BG calls for exploration of the complexities that populisms are currently
attempting to ignore in particularly damaging ways. Firstly, the fact that the
state is not only permeable to cross-border movements, but always tries to make
them productive in order to secure its continued existence. Secondly, the fact
that our societies have always been richer, meaning more diverse and more
heterogeneous, than any single and dominant notion of social life could
project. In other words, the We has always been more rich than homogenized
images of ‘society’ – nowadays turning to extremes due to right-wing populisms
– would have us believe. Hence we are challenged to make this repressed
richness of the social world visible, especially those other ways of living and
working together at the communal level that forge tools for planetary
challenges arising from within the world-shaping process called globalization.

Call for Contributions:The BG’s 20th anniversary project MORE WORLD invites you to explore
together communal tools for planetary challenges. To this end, the BG will
create a special section in the Internet newspaper berlinergazette.de which
will be open for contributions from all over the world. Moreover, we will
organize a series of events. Further information on that can be found on this
website: https://more-world.berlinergazette.de If
you would like to learn more about the project’s questions and ideas, please
continue reading here.

Climate change, migration, digitalization

Today, climate
change is one of the most pressing planetary challenges. It appears to be
something that surrounds, envelops and entangles us, but it is literally too
large to be seen and understood in its entirety. While climate change seems to
be intangible, nowhere and everywhere at the same time, it is linked to
everything and everyone, not least to migration and digitalization. The
millions of people who are fleeing their homes in the Global South are ever
increasingly on the run due to climate change and related disasters. Research
has also provided initial insight into how global warming may already influence
armed conflict. So, increasingly, mass movements of migrants and refugees are also
fleeing their devastated homes and destroyed life-worlds because of wars
breaking out due to climate change, such as in the Syrian conflict. There is
more to come. And we must prepare ourselves for further entanglements. We also
need to take notice of further interdependencies, which are becoming more
complex and dynamic, for example, in the wake of digitalization.

Digitalization is
an ongoing worldwide process, including the expansion of cloud infrastructure:
the installation of fiber optic cables, the erection of data centers and server
farms, etc. This infrastructure has a geopolitical dimension that is rarely
discussed, which materializes itself at border controls, in immigration
decisions or drone attacks, and is also linked to global warming. The political
geography of cloud infrastructure transcends the sovereignty of nation-states
and apparently also suspends the responsibility of nation-states for the
influence of cloud infrastructure on global warming.

Meanwhile, higher
temperatures cause stress for cloud infrastructure, while an incessant increase
in ‘cloud activities’ leads to higher temperatures through the rising heat of
server farms, etc. In the midst of this environmental infrastructure crisis,
political spaces are emerging in which civil and human rights are muddled and
seem to be criss-crossed. The people most affected by this are those who wish
to assert their right to freedom of movement. Thus, migration is becoming a
‘risk game’ in which markets and states that want to benefit from the ‘mobile
workforce’ shift the risk solely to those who are among the most vulnerable in
this ‘game’: refugees, asylum seekers, paperless and stateless persons, etc.

How can cloud
infrastructure be appropriated by existing networks of solidarity? How can we
find ways to make heavier the apparent ‘lightness’ of cloud infrastructure that
accelerates climate change and passes judgment on people’s lives? How can cloud
infrastructure be undermined and replaced by alternative communal structures
that, last but not least, can also support vulnerable people on the move? What
kind of communal practices and tools are useful for the interplay between communal,
state and global approaches to the planetary challenges at hand?

These are far-reaching
questions. But we need to get started somewhere. If we want to meet the
complexities of globalization at the height of their current development, we
must first recognize that climate change, migration and digitalization are
interlinked geopolitical complexes that can only be managed appropriately if
tackled by an interplay of communal, state and global organizational
structures.

But this is easier
said than done. After all, escapism abounds. In the course of this, access to
the world is shrinking – to reiterate, not only to the world as it is, but also
to the world as it could be. This world shrinkage has two interconnected
dimensions. Firstly, complex problems such as climate
change are suppressed. Secondly, the diversity of the social, as it
also arises in the course of migration, is suppressed. Everything is supposed
to become clear and easily manageable – could that ever be the case?

That’s highly
doubtful. After all, the problematic complexities at hand are brought about by
the diversity of the social and vice versa. This said, complex problems cannot be overcome without the potential for social diversity.
Therefore, it is vital to create new accesses to the We, which always also
means creating new forms of access to the world – and vice versa.

The destructive false frontline of right-wing populism

Today, we cannot
avoid taking note of the damage caused by populism to any emancipatory
endeavor. But we should not stop here. Populism’s agenda should not devour too
much of our attention and energy. After all, we need enough strength for our
own agenda. Populism’s agenda should not devour too
much of our attention and energy. After all, we need enough strength for our
own agenda.

First, to populism.Nowadays, the most dominant form of populism is nationalist right-wing
populism. It is spreading rapidly in countries as diverse as Hungary, India,
the USA, Turkey, Japan, Brazil and Germany. Where it finds supporters, simple
solutions to complex problems are promised. This deceptive formula for success
conjures up a homogeneous and authoritarian nation-state as a shelter, ignoring
the fact that the nation-state has for centuries been a catalyst for the
expansion of transnational networks and traffic flows. So this also obscures the
fact that the nation-state has always
played a decisive role in globalization. In other words, right-wing populism is
suppressing the fact that the nation-state has crucially contributed to the
production of planetary problems. In conjuring up the phantasm of the nation, the
nation-state has even been responsible for some of the most atrocious crimes in
human history, for example those committed in the process of colonization.

By blocking out the
ways in which that the state has created the conditions for globalization,
nationalist right-wing populists simultaneously suppress the fact that the
state produces exactly those complexities and problems whose consequences they
want to hide away from inside the ‘sheltering state’.This
irreconcilable contradiction is systematically suppressed by nationalist
right-wing populists today. As they spread their misleading propaganda ever
further afield, the suppressed is discharged into increasingly threatening
energies. We already see, for example, the hounding of ‘the others’ of society,
the ostracizing of ‘unhomogeneous alliances’, and the self-destruction of
societies as in the case of Brexit. In the course of this we risk a regression
into fascism as the proliferation of public debates on the subject, for example
under the heading of “neo-fascism”, also reminds us.

Following the line
of thought of the Frankfurt School, they give us the following to think about:
fascism is driven by a kind of lack of courage. First of all, a lack of courage
on the part of those who join the fascists out of fear of the fascists, but
also a lack of courage on the part of all those who are afraid to face the richness
of the world in all its entanglements and complexities. At the beginning of
this tendency stands escapism: the right-wing populist renunciation of global
interdependencies and transnational obligations, i.e. of the complexities of
economic and ecological, technological and cultural globalization.

The distinction between nationalist and revolutionary politics of affect

In shrinking the
world and the access points to the world, an escapist renunciation is
sanctioned by forms of irrationality that are being legitimized by the
nationalist right-wing politics of affect. What is particularly telling about
this tendency is, that it is not enough
to appeal to the reason of those who have apparently gone mad. Ultimately, the
escapist renunciation of planetary interdependencies goes hand in hand with the
revival of proto-fascist ideas of white supremacy (e.g. Trump, Orban, Gauland),
and also with the revitalization of an idea of rationality – born inside the
European Enlightenment-colonization-complex – that ultimately enforces white
supremacy.

World shrinkage and
alienation from the world are forms of escapism that are performed in an
ecstasy of irrationality or an excess of this reason that stands under the sign
of white supremacy. What today haunts the public sphere as disinhibited
resentment is often an example of both: the
ecstasy of irrationality and the excess of reason informed by notions of white
supremacy.

These processes
vitalize a nationalist right-wing politics of affect, and discredit in the same
breath other affect-driven social movements, as recently celebrated, for
example, in the public debate using the case of the indignados in Southern
Europe. The discrediting of such revolutionary politics of affect is at issue
for various reasons, one of which is: nationalist and revolutionary politics of
affect appear increasingly indistinguishable to the general public, so that
revolutionary politics of affect seem to be robbed of their claim to be
historically right and truthful.

This sets the stage
for a paradoxical predicament.Today, the rise of nationalist right-wing
populism is creating conditions in which the broader spectrum of revolutionary
politics is being delegitimized, while the ‘irrational’ agenda and doings of
the nationalists and the extreme Right appear legitimate and rational.

In this political
climate the public sphere is being severely constricted, catalyzing a
far-reaching shrinkage of the world (that is always also a shrinkage of the We)
and contributing to shutting down the public discourse for opposition, for
dissent and, above all, for the greatest possible plurality of contributions to
the discourse; the latter would also include marginalized, invisibilized and
illegalized actors, for whom discursive openings generally tend to be less
secure than for others. The incessant creation of
an open public sphere – open for dissent and, above all, for the greatest
possible plurality of contributions – has always been the vital basis of any
democracy.

Needless to say,
the incessant creation of an open public sphere – open for dissent and, above
all, for the greatest possible plurality of contributions – has always been the
vital basis of any democracy; yet, remarkably, it is in this historic moment,
in Europe, in the USA and beyond, that it takes the greatest collective courage
to step forward to perform any basic democratic engagement and to live the
richness of the We as it is and as it could be. We are hereby challenged to
explore how this courage can manifest itself productively.

Who needs blocked access to the world anyway?

Before we explore
and search, it is first necessary to note critically that ‘the courage for
democracy’ and ‘the courage for the We’ are often limited to the self-defense
of the privileged – those ‘at the center of society’ composing ‘the majority of
society’: persons with unlimited legal status, access to the higher education
system, jobs subject to social security contributions, etc. Unsurprisingly,
their self-defense is highly problematic, as it is complicit with the
proto-fascist tendencies nurtured by right-wing populism.

For instance, the
privileged are claiming, not without good reason, that ‘the nationalists are
threatening the achievements of liberal democracy’. Yet, they do not bother to
ask who remained and remains excluded from those very ‘achievements’. Instead,
they take as the only measure of the threat those who have benefited from them
and who now seem to be benefiting less in terms of freedom, security,
influence, status, etc.

In remaining
focused on their own certainties – often mirrored in their fixation on the
nationalists – the privileged ultimately support the currently dominant
tendency, normalized by nationalist right-wing populism, of sanctioning the
relating of all precarious developments exclusively to oneself, rather than to
others. The privileged are claiming that ‘the
nationalists are threatening the achievements of liberal democracy’. Yet, they
do not bother to ask who remained and remains excluded from those very
‘achievements’.

This has
particularly grave consequences, as the real threat of shrinking
discursive-political accesses to the world is not so much to the privileged, as
to those who are truly vulnerable: the marginalized, invisible and illegalized
actors, including stateless persons or people of color, as refugee activist
Jennifer Kamau reminds us.

Therefore, if we are now to demand MORE WORLD, we must do so for and
with those who – according to nationalist right-wing populist propaganda –
allegedly are of no concern to us, and who allegedly should be ignored,
excluded or even killed. But we also demand this for and with the
privileged. They too need more access to the world as it is and as it could be.
Because – and this is the crux of the matter – only if, together, we all create
and deploy more access to the world can we constructively meet planetary
challenges.

Unshrinking the We

Today, we are
challenged to reverse the trend towards world shrinkage. We have to create
conditions for more world, which, in the sense of Hegel's “positive
infinity”, should always mean ‘ever-more world’. In other words, we need to
create conditions for an infinite more of the riches of the social
world, which have been forcibly suppressed or fought against under white
supremacy and its white, male rationality.

Consequently, we
need to enable and support the recognition of other ways of thinking, living
and working together, and ultimately, of other politics of affects that are
practiced day in, day out in the shadow of hegemonic discourses on the
micro-level of the communal. Moreover, we need to support the visibility of
those actors at the communal level who arrive at globalization as responsible
contemporaries by recognizing and dealing with global dynamics without
necessarily declaring themselves as political actor models.

After all, it is
these actors, rising to their status as actors from within global dynamics, in
the very networks and movements that hold our societies together in tension and
conflict, who are, in the course of this, critically analyzing and modeling the
handling of these complexities as an interplay of communal, national and
transnational approaches. All of this also means supporting the visibility of
practices that are deploying communal structures and connecting them with state
and global structures to tackle global challenges.

Utopian margins

One important
source for this endeavor is Avery F. Gordon’s “The Hawthorn
Archive. Letters from the Utopian Margins”. This impressively
kaleidoscopic and genre-bending book is based on research that Gordon began in
the 1990s on utopian traditions that have been systematically excluded from the
western canon. Organized in the form of an archive of actual and fictional
experiences of living and working differently, Gordon’s book makes a vast array
of “subjugated knowledge” (Foucault) visible and available for appropriation. Here, those who were struggling for the Commons (and
against enclosures) in seventeenth-century England are a major reference point
for a variety of other movements.

“The Hawthorn
Archive” unearths neglected utopian traditions that are less about some distant
future place that would have to be built according to people’s ideals, and much
more about living and working differently in the here and now. Here, those who
were struggling for the Commons (and against enclosures) in seventeenth-century
England are a major reference point for a variety of other movements, including
those who struggled for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery in the
Americas and those who struggled for decolonization in the Global South.

Needless to say,
these struggles are still taking place. Making their history accessible by
raising documents not as witnesses but rather as voices, makes it possible to
situate contemporary struggles in a wider context and to understand how to
detect them in the present. After all,
aren’t many of the contemporary practices of living and working differently at
the communal level simply taking place, rather than being declared and recorded
as explicitly political, not to say utopian, projects? These undeclared acts
tend to be overlooked when we are collectively making sense of the world in
general and globalization in particular. The richness of communal practices
remains buried in the “utopian margins”, as Gordon puts it.

Rebooting the commons question

When probing the
potential richness of the communal in the present political climate, it is
compelling to take a closer look at the 1990s, that is, at the official
beginning of the most recent chapter of globalization. Comparing our present
moment to the 1990s, we may ask what constitutes continuity, repetition and
difference?

One thing is
certain: the by-now largely forgotten social movements that emerged back then
were challenged, like we are today, to position themselves at various fronts at
the same time and to develop new alliances along the way. For instance, they
had to position themselves in a doubly antagonistic fashion – both to
globalization euphoria (apropos ‘global triumph of the free market and
liberal democracy’) and to globalization phobia (see, for example, the
rise of international right-wing populism or racist-motivated attacks on asylum
centres in Germany).

Since movements of
the 1990s cultivated a critical distance to the tendency of ‘irrational’
reactions to globalization, this critical distance enabled an analytical
clarity that could prove vital vis-à-vis the ‘false clarity’ incited in the
currently ‘irrationally’ heated right-wing populist climate. In this sense we
could approach the critical movements of the 1990s as buried toolboxes to be
unearthed in this historical moment. We could inspect them as to how they
realized key political practices, above all making possible a revival of the
practice of the Commons: the local self-administration of resources and
livelihoods that are increasingly being destroyed or privatized in the course
of neo-liberal globalization, which has kicked off a new phase of enclosures.

Around the Commons
question, ways of living and working together at the communal level were
cultivated that were at once local and global. No wonder: after all, these were
movements of the early Internet era. Ushering in forms of collective imagination
and cooperation across borders, their actions were driven by something that
activist and scholar Angela Davis calls “hyper-empathy” – an empathy that
enables solidarity beyond the limits of the nation-state.

In the course of
this, alliances were formed between the Global North and the Global South and
between the West and the East, the former, for example, in the case of
movements as different as Zapatism, No One Is Illegal or Afrofuturism; the
latter, for example, in the case of net activism or cyberfeminism.

Not least, the
interplay of municipal, state and global structures could be tested in seminal
ways. A particularly dazzling example of this would be the Zapatistas. In order to organize their livelihoods
communally, the Zapatistas claimed regional autonomy, appealed to the rule of
law and cultivated international solidarity networks – all in the shadow of and
in resistance to the predatory doings of private-sector and governmental global
players. In this sense we could approach the
critical movements of the 1990s as buried toolboxes to be unearthed in this
historical moment… What can we – the privileged and dispossessed alike – learn
from their failures?

Resisting
idealizing them nostalgically, we could rescue these approaches from the
shadows of the utopian margins, thereby making their subjugated knowledge about
communal practices visible and putting the usefulness of this knowledge for
today's situation up for discussion: How did the movements of the 1990s model
the communal and, more generally speaking, the We in relation to state and
global structures? What lessons do they offer for today's (planetary)
challenges at the intersection of climate change, migration and digitalization?
What can we – the privileged and dispossessed alike – learn from their
failures?

Please note that many people who photograph the EZLN do so
anonymously and make their work sharable for non-commercial use. Such is
the case here, so we do not have credits to attach.

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